A Different Stripe

New links, bookstores, mainly

Inspired by Mr. Beatrice, we've added some bookseller blogs to the Links page.

First, a local favorite, The Community Bookstore—where one of the best-sellers appears to be a black cat—has a blog hiding away under the title "Messing About."

Harry W. Schwartz in Milwaulkee suggests some offbeat books at The Inside Flap.

The lovely folks at Vertigo Books in Maryland are raffling off an NYRB Classics tote.

Vroman's in Pasadena was named Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year for 2008.

And if we get our act together you'll be seeing an interview with us on the Porter Square Books blog sometime soon.

Also added: Nikki McClure,  Picador (UK), and Beacon Broadside (the editor of which was kind enough to include us in her list of best publisher blogs).

This record is skipping: Shop indy bookstores!

Need another reason? See this AP story about Powell's employees being asked to cut back on hours. If you aren't in Portland, Oregon, you can still patronize Powell's mail-order service, which have used (mainly for their vast used book selection) and been very pleased with many times over the years. And, their website is a great one-stop book news source.

Without further ado, here's an open letter from Roy Blount, Jr.:

Buy Books From Your Local Bookstore, Now

December 11, 2008. I've been talking to booksellers lately who report that times are hard. And local booksellers aren't known for vast reserves of capital, so a serious dip in sales can be devastating. Booksellers don't lose enough money, however, to receive congressional attention. A government bailout isn't in the cards.

We don't want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let's mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party. Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that's just for starters. Clear out the mysteries, wrap up the histories, beam up the science fiction! Round up the westerns, go crazy for self-help, say yes to the university press books! Get a load of those coffee-table books, fatten up on slim volumes of verse, and take a chance on romance!

There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they're easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. Stockpile children's books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they'll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books. Then tell the grateful booksellers, who by this time will be hanging onto your legs begging you to stay and live with their cat in the stockroom: "Got to move on, folks. Got some books to write now. You see...we're the Authors Guild."

Enjoy the holidays.

Roy Blount Jr.
President, Authors Guild

Commonplace: The strangest writer, according to Borges

"I have visited some literatures of the East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic anthology of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

—Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non-fictions
via A Journey Round My Skull

Two events: Peter Coyote on Emmett Grogan and Caroline Banfálvi on Hungarian Food and Wine

We've got free food (à la Emmett Grogan and the Diggers) and food that's so cheap it's practically free (in Hungary).

Tonight (Wednesday, December 10) Peter Coyote, who, along with Emmett Grogan, founded the radical and decidedly anti-hippie group the Diggers, talks about his friend at Book Passage in Corte Madeira. Read Peter Coyote's introduction to Ringolevio on his site.

Tomorrow night (Thursday, December 11) The Little Bookroom throws a party for Food Wine Budapest at the best newest little independent bookstore in New York City, Idlewild Books.